


will you sing my truth in the winter night?

by Analinea



Series: Be still, my whumper's heart [14]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: (which was actually me today at work too), Day 25, Doctor Whump, F/F, Pre-Relationship, Whumptober 2020, but they be gay for each other, day 22, disorientation, i think i'll just collapse right there thanks, it's a bit bittersweet, ngl this gets a lil' angsty and could hurt, poisoned, yaz emotional whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27152594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Analinea/pseuds/Analinea
Summary: It goes like this:Both fresh out of their first adventure alone, Yaz’s blood still singing with the novelty and ecstasy of having the Doctor all to herself. She misses Graham and Ryan, she does; but being the only one at arms length of the Doctor is intoxicating.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Series: Be still, my whumper's heart [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947337
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	will you sing my truth in the winter night?

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this mostly right now before posting, I can barely think straight because work was horrible today, but I'm proud of myself for keeping with my schedule *flexes muscles*  
> I'm still not a native speaker and this is still not brit picked except by chrome, I'm sorry about that T.T if you have any corrections I'm all ears :) 
> 
> One line in the story is from Back to the stars by Until the Ribbon Breaks, provider of great fic titles this month and you should listen to this one too because it's *chef's kiss* and the lyrics are *gross sobbing*  
> Anyway!
> 
> Hope you enjoy it!

There is this song, old and wordless, that will use Yaz’s voice when she’s unaware. It stops as soon as she starts hearing it, barely leaving an echo in her memories. 

She asked her mother, once, if she knew the tune; could it be a lullaby from a time outside of remembrance, but engraved in the foundations of her life? But her mom shook her head no, and the mystery slipped out of Yaz’s mind.

She thinks about it, now; the Doctor’s head on her lap, fingers running through soft blond hair, singing. Each time she blinks she sees warm grass and bronze earth –the Punjab of her grandmother. Where she heard the song instead of feeling its presence in her own throat. 

It mends the frayed edges of her heart. She hopes it does the same for the Doctor, that her mind is soothed by the melody. Wherever it went when she shut down. 

She did the whole comical routine –though it might have been the product of confusion– the one Yaz hates because maybe it’s supposed to dedramatise the situation but it only works to heighten her anxiety. She always feels like she has to take things seriously for the people who don’t; the Doctor might not understand that because she always tries to take everything onto her own shoulders, so burdened she can’t notice when the bad trickles down her arms to the tip of her fingers, where she can only smear it upon anything she touches.

Yaz locks uncharitable thought away. The Doctor more than balances it all out with the stars she gives Yaz to eat for breakfast. 

But then this– this failure that Yaz can’t help revisiting with each pass of her hand on the Doctor’s head. 

It goes like this:

Both fresh out of their first adventure alone, Yaz’s blood still singing with the novelty and ecstasy of having the Doctor all to herself. She misses Graham and Ryan, she does; but being the only one at arms length of the Doctor is intoxicating. 

It’s enough space to reach out into what has been starting for a long time now –though when time doesn’t seem to exist in the strict circle of a watch, _a long time_ means not enough and more than needed, simultaneously. They experiment with boundaries.

They dance around the console, pushing buttons and levers, as the TARDIS shakes with her typical exuberance whenever they’re travelling. They land on a promise of a tranquil visit this time, though Yaz has learned better than to believe the universe doesn’t love being contrary. 

“Air full of trimozenes!” the Doctor says, eyes on her screen as Yaz keeps her own on the Doctor’s joyfulness, “Harmless to bipeds!” She wrinkles her nose in thought but either she chooses to ignore whatever came to mind or declared it unimportant, sauntering away with a mighty shrug and opening the door without care. 

Yaz follows; she always will, she truly believes that. It scares her a little, the implications, but she has been taught by the best in the art of swiping worries and self-preservation under the layers of mysteries every world has to offer.

The Doctor is already out there, swinging the sonic around in this theatrical way that doesn’t seem to need an audience to be played. “This way!” towards one of the suns, low in the purple sky.

“What’s this way?” Yaz asks, taking in the dark leaves of thick bushes and the rocky terrain. It might be beautiful, in someone else’s eyes, but Yaz has always been more of a moor girl. She turns to the TARDIS one last time, committing to memory the landscape she cuts with her straight blue lines.

The Doctor rambles as she walks, but never really gives Yaz an answer. Yaz is used to sentences that backtrack and loop around each other, knows to let the words fit themselves in the creases of her memory. Her attention is cut in half between her auditory system, and balancing whether or not to reach for the Doctor’s hand to the rhythm at which it swings. 

Up and away, don’t touch; down and back, touch. Up and away–

“I really thought I’d parked the TARDIS ‘round here, didn’t I?” the Doctor halts, jarring Yaz out of her hand-holding considerations. 

“What?” 

“I’m…” she trails off instead of elaborating, squinting up but not at any of the suns, stopping where the horizon’s line isn’t broken by distant hills. She never picks up her own thread but Yaz is used to doing that for her.

“You’re what?” She takes a step to line up with the Doctor’s point of view– the Doctor’s attention snaps to Yaz so fast it sends her careening backwards a few steps, hands and sonic held out. Yaz freezes at the shard of confused hurt the motion stabs into her throat. 

“Yaz!” A surprised relief sounds out of the name, but the sonic stays clenched between her white-knuckled fingers when Yaz glances down at it “You! Should know better than to sneak up on people!” Yaz gets scolded, “How–” the Doctor straightens up, tilts her head with a grimace, “How did you _get_ here?”

The shard grows to a worry so big Yaz can taste it. “What’you mean _how did I get here_ ? I came with _you_!” She takes that step she’s been holding back; the Doctor distances herself again. “What’s happening here, this a joke?” she knows it’s not– she knows this isn’t how she’s supposed to react.

Training is easily uprooted when loved ones are pained– but Yaz has no safety net under her clumsy feet now that she’s alone with the Doctor, she has to do better. To act grounded or risk losing control of the situation.

She takes a breath deep enough to square up her shoulders, plants her feet. “Are you alright?” on the breath out, feeling each letter rolling on her tongue.

“Yeah, no, I am!” the Doctor frowns, jerking her head back at the ludicrous question. _Stupid Yaz_ hangs in the silence between the words. “Tip top shape,” she continues, twisting on her feet to look behind herself, “why would you even _ask that_?” What starts as shaking her head in frustration turns to ridding herself of something heavy enough to bow her back under its weight.

Yaz knows better than to give in to the desperate urge to help –on alien planets, one is always on the edge of making things worse by accident. _Assess first_. 

The Doctor shoots upright, rocks crunching under her feet when she whirls to face Yaz, pointing at her. “Yaz! Brilliant!” her smile is a frightening thing, no matter that it barely lasts before she starts pacing, fidgeting with the sonic when she doesn’t bury her hand in her hair. 

“I was thinking,” she starts, “or, actually, I _will_ think? About quartz–” she stills to look at Yaz “–you _do_ know quartz, don’t you?” A pause, start again. “Innocuous looking, quite pretty if you know to ask nicely, big, _big_ thing for watches,” she mimes it, then stops with her arms half raised to turn to Yaz again, “never bring a quartz watch on the TARDIS, she has a grudge, will mess them up.”

The frantic rhythm of her steps drives Yaz half crazy from the anxiety it stirs up. But the Doctor presses on, “But always bring a piece of quartz, rule fifteen, you know why?” This time when she lets her feet rest next to each other, she keeps her head down. “Cause I was wrong.” 

Yaz tenses up, conditioned to go properly terrified when she hears those words. 

“It’s not harmless to bipeds–” the Doctor raises her eyes to Yaz, losing balance in the process but catching herself on her left foot. “It’s harmful to bivascular species.” She pauses barely long enough for Yaz to _understand_ , then puts a finger up. “Right pocket. Tell me something.”

“What?” Yaz croaks out, her planted feet now firmly stuck to the ground. _Do better_ , she begs, unable to listen to herself as her focus belongs only to the Doctor now.

“Did we lose Ryan and Graham somewhere behind a rock? I’m heavier than I look, and someone is definitely turning off the lights.” She nods informatively, pales. 

And then she collapses. 

The Doctor’s pockets have dimensions of their own, but Yaz finds the piece of quartz and, not knowing what else to do, used to the silliest things being the right answers, she puts it in the Doctor’s mouth. 

It’s only desperation and a friendly terrain that allow her to make the trip back to the TARDIS without giving up. 

She gets in. Then hopes. Then waits. 

The suns on the screen showing the outside never really go down, hanging low and dancing up around each other. Yaz sings. The TARDIS echoes, once, with a deep note on the edge of hearing. An assurance that it’s not yet time to mourn. 

“Wa’za’ong?” 

The breath punched out of Yaz brings a few tears with it that no closed eyelid could dam. She looks down at tired slivers of eyes, dark instead of vibrant green. She gently reaches to pluck the rock from between the Doctor’s teeth, trying not to displace enough air for the Doctor to remember to put space between them.

“What’s that song?” the Doctor repeats, fog in her voice but colours on her cheeks. 

“You scared me,” Yaz chooses to answer instead. She frowns, wipes one of her own tears from the Doctor’s forehead. 

“Say, Yaz…” she trails off, head rolling on Yaz’s lap. “Say…” 

“What do you want me to say?” Yaz whispers, chest too empty for louder words. The panic still lurks around the soft bends of her heart, slipping its tendrils around her lungs. 

“These hearts,” the Doctor murmurs, eyes closed, tipping into sleep. It occurs to Yaz that this might turn out to be a secret she’s not supposed to listen to. But she does anyway. “These hearts were made to love you.”

_Oh_ . She sobs, bites her lips to keep the damage inside. She barely understands why this hurts so much when it should heal instead; _out of time_ , she thinks, not too late but misplaced. A truth not quite ready to be offered. “Mine was made to love you, too” she can only give back, raised to ever be fair.

The Doctor opens her eyes again, her smile so softly fragile. “Will you still love me, when it snows?”

Yaz can’t imagine ever stopping, no matter the season, no matter the slowing down, the quiet, the ageing. The death to better be reborn. “I will. We’ll have our stories, whatever happens, yeah?” She wonders if the Doctor would have the same answer to that question, doesn’t dare asking. 

The Doctor sighs, content. Shuts her eyes. “My Yaz,” she whispers.

Then she sleeps.

And Yaz sings.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are the light of my day <3
> 
> I'm on [the infinite scrolling thing](https://kinsbournescream.tumblr.com/tagged/ana-writes-sometimes)


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